IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/137.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How to Fight Terrorism: Alternatives to Deterrence

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno S. Frey
  • Simon Luechinger

Abstract

Deterrence has been a crucial element in fighting terrorism, both in actual politics and rational choice analyses of terrorism. But there are superior strategies to deterrence. One is to make terrorist attacks less attractive. Another to raise the opportunity cost � rather than the material cost � to terrorists. These alternative strategies effectively dissuade potential terrorists. The strategies suggested here build on the �benevolence� system and tend to produce a positive sum game among the interacting parties. In contrast, the deterrence system is based on �threats� and tends to produce a negative sum game interaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger, "undated". "How to Fight Terrorism: Alternatives to Deterrence," IEW - Working Papers 137, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.uzh.ch/apps/workingpapers/wp/iewwp137.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Terrorism; Deterrence; Decentralisation; Opportunity Cost; Rational Choice; Motivation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Severin Oswald (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.